


Three Days

by jasonmomoaspinkscrunchie



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Depression, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 11:52:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18637594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasonmomoaspinkscrunchie/pseuds/jasonmomoaspinkscrunchie
Summary: In which Thor has not succeeded and Valkyrie is not surprised, but she's a good friend anyway.





	Three Days

_You should’ve gone for the head._

It startles him awake, like it has every night for the last three nights. It’ll get easier, he knows and Valkyrie has continued to remind him but when? It had been better, can be better, when he doesn’t allow himself to remember. 

It’s with that thought that he climbs from the bed tucked away in the back of the house and pads out into the dark of the front living room, and he doesn’t even pause to try to talk himself out of it. 

It would’ve come back to this eventually anyway. Nearly five years on and it always does, doesn’t it?

The light of the refrigerator casts an eerie glow about the room, but he has eyes for only one thing and the familiar hiss of the can as he pops the tab soothes his soul in a way that nothing else does.

In the back of his mind, there’s a feeling of shame that washes over him, but neither is that a new feeling. 

Thor Odinson is no stranger to shame, to the feeling of uselessness, to the--.

He quickly stops that line of thinking with the first swallow. There’s something about the coolness of the amber liquid burning its way down his throat that settles him almost instantly. He is not there yet, but the comfortable numbness he has so come to need will be cocooning him shortly and it is with that thought that he grabs a second can and teeters over to the armchair beside the window.

\--

He knows not how long he sits there, nor does he know how many trips to the refrigerator and back again that he has made. 

But most blessedly of all, he does not remember the weight of all his failures. Their faces are blurred in his mind’s eye, and he finds that he is able to close his eyes and give in to the pull of slumber, crushed cans scattered around him.

 

_You should’ve…_

\--

He wakes to the feeling of a familiar hand in his hand and it’s the only kind of kindness that he allows himself these days. The only kind she offers.

“Again?” 

She sounds disappointed, sad, and the feeling of shame he’d managed to brush to the side last night rears its ugly head full force, souring in the pit of his belly. He can’t even bring himself to look at her, but it doesn’t matter because she doesn’t look at him now either.

“Three days?” Valkyrie sighs, taking in the wreckage around them.

“Mmm,” it’s the only answer he can offer for fear of vomiting, though whether that’s from the binge or the knowledge that he’s disappointed her again, he’s not certain.

“And did it help?” 

He doesn’t offer her an answer. He doesn’t have one, because he doesn’t know. He’d drank enough that he’s still numb, that it doesn't bother him nearly as much as it does when he’s sober.

But he knows the hurt will come back.

It always does.

The noise that escapes her is but another sigh and she moves to hoist him to his feet. He goes, a groan escaping him as all that beer sloshes in his gut, but she doesn’t let him go.

She never does, does she? Perhaps she should. He is not worthy.

“You’re an idiot,” Valkyrie says quietly as she leads him back into his room and drops him unceremoniously onto his bed.

He rolls over, tugging the blanket up over his shoulders and he feels her lingering, just for a moment. 

“Perhaps we’ll try again tomorrow. You can’t keep doing this. You know that.”

He does. 

He knows a lot of things now:

He knows that he could not save his mother, nor could he save his brother. He knows that they lost friends and family and he knows that at the end of the day, the fault rests squarely upon his shoulders. 

He turns onto his back and he glances up at her, on the verge of sleep.

“I should’ve gone for the head.”


End file.
